Maggie's Farm

Even by North Korean standards, this announcement of Jang Song Thaek’s execution is intense

3 Reasons Why Our Teenagers Can’t Find Jobs - And why this is terrible for America.

Big Farms Are About to Get Bigger:

 All of us involved in agriculture will soon have to decide whether we want to occupy the nostalgic niche providing artisanal beets and heritage pork to Cowen’s 10 percent, or whether we’ll roll the dice on surviving the transition to a data-driven agriculture. Farming will be more efficient, more environmentally responsible, and easier to regulate and measure. But it won’t be the same.

Why the circular firing squad from conservatives, and why now?

Snark vs. Smarm

Third EPA Official Implicated in $900K Scam

Chris Matthews Panics About 2014: ‘The Tea Party is Still Growing!’

NYT: Obamacare Debacle Could Kill Big Blue:

 Cumulatively, recent developments surrounding the rollout of Obamacare strengthen the most damaging conservative portrayals of liberalism and of big government – that on one hand government is too much a part of our lives, too invasive, too big, too scary, too regulatory, too in your face, and on the other hand it is incompetent, bureaucratic and expropriatory.

Green Weenie of the Week: RI Sen. Whitehouse’s Latest Self-Dealing Scam

Unions Paid MSNBC's Schultz $177,000 in 2012, $75,000 in 2013 - MSNBC host often touts "blue collar workers" and unionized "teachers" on his show.

Philanthropy, stock-picking, and Presbyterian frugality:

 Bostonians still tell the story of the respectable society matron who was crossing the Common one day and ran into an old college chum she hadn’t seen for years. The matron was dismayed to see that her friend was obviously engaged in the world’s oldest profession. “My dear,” she said, “whatever has happened to you?” “Well,” said her friend, “it was either this or dip into capital.”

... President Obama told Chris Matthews he had discovered “we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed properly.”

"he had discovered..."?

Connecticut's Obamacare Exchange Spends $75K on Murals

 As of today, it's snow-covered and will remain so until Spring.

As much as I am agnostic about the value of the Fed, this is interesting: Here's Why People Are So Excited That Stanley Fischer Might Be The Deputy Fed Chief

It sounds to me as if he might be the heavy, and Yellen the figurehead.

You can use any sort of fresh mushroom you want, but use shallots, not onions. This recipe is about right but it can take 1/2 hr on the stovetop to get the water out of the mushrooms, and to get the reduced flavor back into them. Constant stirring.

What are they good for?

- Stuff a boned quail from D'Artagnan with it, then the quail jus or gibier on top.
- Put in a puff pastry for a treat.
- Add some grated gorgonzola and stick them in wontons for a very fine ravioli. Cream sauce on top. Would work as darn good potstickers too.
- Put in little tarts
- use for crostini
- and it's the stuff in Beef Wellington

Story from Sipp, here.

Somebody should give that kid a fiddle.

Why the Oxford comma is a good thing

Everyone Is a Criminal: On the Over-policing of America - Try to think of an aspect of everyday life that doesn’t somehow include the police.

Harvard Votes To Banish Bottled Water

Why not ban bottled beer too?

Washington’s Battle of the Skyline - The rent is too high; the buildings are too low.

Feds Spend $224,250 to Change How Kids Order Food

Washington Post Falsely Reports 365,000 'Have Purchased' ObamaCare

Sebelius Calls for Probe of Obamacare Website Launch

WSJ:  Warren's Way or No Way - Liberal Democrats try to silence two of our op-ed writers.

How Much Redistribution Is Enough?

The Democrats want little kids to die of cancer

Obamacare, where the liberal dream crashes and burns

Oregon spends $300 million to enroll 44 for Obamacare

From an engineer who knows high tech systems:

Imagine writing a 3,000-page law to totally restructure the national 'utilities' infrastructure. The likelihood of success would be zero; chaos and irreversible damage would surely result.

ObamaCare undertakes to completely and indiscriminately redefine the entire health-care segment of the U.S. economy, including laws and regulations, incentives and market forces, the delivery system, the providers, the insurance model, the customer interface, the billing and financing, and every other aspect of the existing system. This magnitude of change is distinctly irrational.

Inside America’s Great Romance With Norman Rockwell - A new biography of the artist reveals the complex inner life of our greatest and most controversial illustrator

I don't know why they bother to wonder whether he was gay or not. Sounds more shy and inhibited to me, but who cares? I didn't know that he was a New Yorker.

This is The Connoisseur (1963)

Craig's List has it all. I am told you can search "Diesel," "Dog Food," or "Pain Relief," and if you sort through the listings you can find whatever you want. Heroin, Meth, coke, crack, Ecstasy, pot, Oxycontin, etc.

I do not want this stuff, but lots of people do. Yes, they deliver to your door or workplace in manila envelopes, but they do not take credit cards.

Thus the successful government war on drugs, ongoing since the Nixon administration. Prohibition never works. This is an ordinary Black Market similar to the Black Market for booze during Prohibition (when Joe Kennedy got rich with his Boston mobster buddies).

I am opposed to drug prohibition, and I am opposed to substance abuse as a terrible life plan.

Wall Street Mothers, Stay-Home Fathers

Via Insty,  Your Wife Is Not, or Shouldn’t Be, Your Boss

No Child Allowed Ahead

Nation of Islam Leader’s Home In Hyde Park Received $100,000 in Farm Subsidies

Drafting Docs - Look for doctors to be conscripted to treat Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Obamacare will end up forcing doctors to take patients

Quote from Andy McCarthy:

 Today’s Democrats, however, are less members of a party than of the movement Left. Their objective, like Obama’s, is fundamental transformation of a society rooted in individual liberty and private property to one modeled on top-down, redistributionist statism. Since statism advances by concentrating governmental power, Democrats — regardless of what governmental branch they happen to inhabit — rally to whatever branch holds the greatest transformative potential. Right now, that is the presidency. Thus, congressional Democrats do not insist that the president must comply with congressional statutes. Laws, after all, must be consistent with the Constitution to be valid, and are thus apt to reflect the very constitutional values the Left is trying to supplant. Democrats want the president to use the enormous raw power vested in his office by Article II to achieve statist transformation. If he does so, they will support him. They’ll get back to obsessing over the “rule of law” if, by some misfortune, the Republicans someday win another presidential election.

Why Is Everybody Sitting on Huge Piles of Cash?

Everybody?

Here's why - Stock market corrected for QE

David Stockman Rages Market "Valuation Has Lost Any Anchor To The Real World"

You won't believe these gummint rules:  Newseum Settles with DOJ Over Disability Regulation Violations

How to Keep Workers Unemployed - Another 99 weeks of jobless insurance won't create more jobs.

Greenfield: The Mandela Myth

EPA preparing to unleash a deluge of new regulations - on your own ponds, ditches, and creeks

What's the right amount of redistribution of money? The pivot that isn’t

The New York Times’ ‘homeless’ hooey

Obama Flirts and Clowns at Mandela Memorial Service

A friend took this pic 20 or 30 years ago, in Maryland

In denial of gravity? From the post at Zero Hedge

Kevyn Orr -In Shepherding Detroit Bankruptcy, Lawyer Tackles a Job He Didn’t Ask For

MSNBC’s Alternative Universe - What passes for journalism on the network is downright silly

U.S. exits GM stake,
taxpayers lose about $10 billion

Political polarization:  Obama Is Tearing America Apart

Jeff Goldstein unloads on Peggy Noonan

Obamacare, where the liberal dream crashes and burns

 The biggest threat to Obamacare is not Republicans. The biggest threat is Murphy’s Law, along with its corollary, the Law of Unintended Consequences. These are the most powerful laws in the world. They are even more powerful than the Affordable Care Act, and they are the nemesis of all master plans. Evidently, the President and his merry band of wonks had never heard of them.

With QE tapering in sight, how high can long-term interest rates go?

Farm negotiators shift on subsidies

CBO:Top 40% Paid 106.2% of Income Taxes; Bottom 40% Paid -9.1%, Got Average of $18,950 in 'Transfers'

China Meets Its Own Worst Enemy: Itself - Excessive nationalism threatens the country's potential.

The religious group known as the Quakers has sacrificed its founding religious principles at the altar of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Tobin:  The Real Benghazi Scandal

Gender wage gap in Obama’s White House: Female staffers earn less than 87 cents on the dollar compared to men

Why "climate change"?

...keen observers have noticed that "climate change" began to replace "global warming" as the preferred term among the enviro-lobby when its predictions of heat-related disasters weren't realized and winter refused to retire.

Maybe another name change is in the works since the data show there hasn't been much change for at least 16 years and that the predicted superstorms haven't materialized.

VDH on presidential lying:

 Obama is playing a strange game: The more he speaks untruthfully, the more he resorts to emphatic intensifiers that instead confirm that he is speaking untruthfully. In turn, Obama’s audiences play an even stranger game: The more they hear their president speak, the more they are impressed that he can sound so sincere in being so nonchalantly insincere and mellifluously misleading. When I first heard, “You can keep your doctor and your health plan,” I thought, “That can’t be true; he knows it can’t be true; and the American people must know it can’t be true” — and, then, I shrugged: “But he’s hit upon a winning lie.”

Image: Coming soon to your doctor's office

Conservationists Outraged After Obama Approves Wind Farm Eagle Slaughter

10-year old Johnny Jones suspended for shooting imaginary arrow

This Week in History: Republican Party Abolishes Slavery

Hooray! More Lousy Jobs Have Been Created

If Pearl Harbor happened now

The Soldiers Who Saved Europe's Art From Hitler

Chris Matthews on his Obama interview: “He came to us. He came amongst us.”

Sheesh. Chris, the guy is our employee.

A Federal Agency That Still Uses Floppy Disks

Why Hillary Will Lose Again

Blumer on Obamacare:

 Considering that the people involved are supposedly our best and brightest — as they and their media lapdogs constantly remind us — is it really possible that utter stupidity and incompetence fully explain what has transpired? I think not. Until someone can prove otherwise, the default position has to be that chaos is what they want, and that they will continue to work to deepen it.

Teachers unions face moment of truth

Why Americans aren’t buying into Obama’s economic inequality shtick

Totten: The Once Great City of Havana:

If Cuba had free enterprise, and if Americans could travel there without restrictions, the economy would go supernova.

My Grandpa loved going to Cuba

Gutfeld: The Hate Crime Hoax Business Is Booming

All Aboard! Freight Rail Giant Testing Natural Gas-Powered Locomotives

MSNBC host equates ‘Obamacare’ with N-word

Vladimir Putin has dissolved Russia´s biggest news agency RIA Novosti

Saying Grace goes for $46 million at Sotheby's

The time from the start of Advent to Christmas is like a short spiritual pregnancy.

What's the miracle of Christmas? That Christ can be born in all of us, anywhere, any time, at any season, to make us fully human and complete by linking the divine spark in our pagan, fallen souls to the holy.

Is it a shame, or a blessing, that we have to really need Him before we will put our precious selves aside, just a bit, to let Him into our lives?

While my Puritan ancestors would never celebrate the "Roman" (eg "Anti-Christ") feast of Christmas, I find it to be an emotional reminder of that miracle which exists in the present, not the past. And the totally pagan, Germanic tree is a perfect metaphor for transformation - ordinary baby firs, like all of us (miracle enough right there), with the potential to be transformed by light and truth and beauty and brotherly love.

At Maggie's Farm HQ, this transformation, from ordinary fir tree to Holy Spirit-illuminated tree, is what we pray for. (Hold the tinsel, please.) It's not decor, it's a symbol of our potential.

Matthew 3:1-12

3:1 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,

3:2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

3:3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"

3:4 Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

3:5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan,

3:6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

3:7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

3:8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance.

3:9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

3:10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

3:11 "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

3:12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Thanks for a good, fatiguing day in the field and plenty of good talk about serious matters. Glad I had the chance to test out my Grandpa's 16 ga. A-5. It seems to shoot straight. Heavy, though, after a few hours. This is how we roll in Yankeeland:

By the way, I know our readers always wondered what Woodcock "chalk" looks like. It's like a white splash on the fallen leaves. You have seen it in the woods, if observant. I took a photo:

I recently had a chat with my 4-Star Paris-trained chef friend about special creams. I learned a few things.

For starters, she said that Creme Fraiche and Sour Cream are culinarily identical, but you pay more if the label says Creme Fraiche which is only slightly lighter in weight. I already saved you a few bucks, because now you can put ordinary sour cream on your mixed-berry dessert.

Clotted Cream, or Devonshire Cream, is what you put on your scones and crumpets and strumpets. Excellent flavor on strumpets. Here's what it is. She said you can get it at Whole Foods, but I won't go there.

Good old Whipped Cream requires no comment.

Somewhat related -

- When I was a kid, Mom used to make Junket for dessert. I thought it was good, but nobody makes Junket anymore. (She made Jello dessert too with a squirt of Reddi-Whip, and Coffee Jello was my favorite.) Maybe some chef could spruce up Junket and bring it back into fashion.

- English Custard (Sauce). A classic for Bread Pudding, Plum Pudding, and other Brit puddings and desserts. Simple and delicious. Pour it on.

- Blancmange? I've never had it.

50 Years After Vaccine Creation, Measles Still Threatens U.S.

A fine winter getaway: Anse Chastenet on St. Lucia

SoHo: Unplanned Urban Renewal

Maintenance sex

What good is the Fed? The Fed Turns 100: A Survey of the Critics

Multiculturalism would be Unanimous if it Weren't for Your Damn Tribe of Individuals!

Black Female Prof. Gets Sensitivity Training When White Male Students Tire of Being Called Racists

Federal Flood Insurance and the 99% Not in Mansions - Many of those affected by rises in federal flood insurance aren't beachfront millionaires.

The libertarian in me says flood zones should be market-priced

If you want someone to listen to you on race, you don't start by likening him to a slaveowner

The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income

Jobless Rate Lowest in 5 Years, Raising Odds of a Fed Move

Bad for equities

How To Opt Out Of Obamacare - Know your options and become savvy self-pay patients

Grist: Christmas Ruined In 6-10 Years Cause Climate Change

Obama's Plan to Snatch Your Savings

North Dakota might have the strongest labor market in the world

Hillary Clinton: Be the vagina

Liberals talk race and crime – and hilarity ensues!

Shades of Vietnam: Spike in U.S. troop deaths tied to stricter rules of
engagement

The jobs report:  41% of Net New Jobs in November Were in Government

Good advice from Dems to Dems (h/t Insty): The Democratic Party: How It Can Save Itself

He wrote lots of poetry. This is a piece he wrote about the travails of painting the Sistine chapel ceiling:

I’ve already grown a goiter from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water’s poison).
My stomach’s squashed under my chin, my beard’s
pointing at heaven, my brain’s crushed in a casket,
my breast twists like a harpy’s. My brush,
above me all the time, dribbles paint
so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!

That is via  Art Is Work. It Isn’t Theory. - Great masterpieces don't flow out without devotion and sacrifice.

Here's a fun essay:  Was Michelangelo the first celebrity artist?

Probably was. Before the Renaissance, artists were artisans and nobody knew or cared who made the pretty pictures. Same with music too.

Male menopause

Smarter people drink more.

What Does It Take To Be Middle Class?

Sex addiction "not a real disorder"

Girls, Boys, Both, Neither - A “bathroom bill” for California schools sparks a backlash.

"What is your ‘gender identity’?"

Remembering Nelson Mandela's Unsung Economic Legacy

Expansion of Medicaid and the inevitable downgrading of doctors

2013: slowest Atlantic hurricane season in 30 years

Global-warming ‘proof’ is evaporating

CNN mocks Greenpeace’s “Save Santa’s Home” video

GHEI: Shutting down the engines of innovation - Hubris drives regulators to expand their domain

Turkey’s Marginal Theocracy

China to expel New York Times, Bloomberg journalists

Administration Finalizes Obamacare
Tax Over Holiday Weekend - Health Insurance Tax to Raise Premiums by 3%, Cost $60
Billion Over Next 5 Years

Private Corporation Building Detention Camps Across America

Nelson Mandela and Zionism

Administration close to finalizing rule to give wind farms a pass on killing eagles for decades

North Korea is pushing ahead with plans to expand its infamous labor camps for
political prisoners, according to a report released Wednesday by Amnesty
International

Four Ways Katie Couric Stacked The Deck Against Gardasil

Why Millennials Can’t Grow Up

The Male Brain vs. the Female Brain

As Hospital Prices Soar, a Stitch Tops $500

Fate of Detroit’s Art Hangs in the Balance

Elephant poaching

Kirsten Powers: Being a Democrat Was My Religion

Sowell: How ‘victimhood’ kills achievement

The Three Most Important Ongoing Second Amendment Cases

Was Kennedy Planning to Pull Out of Vietnam?

Kissinger, Shultz: Under Iran Deal, Previously Illegal Activity is
Accepted as Baseline

6-out-of-10 Believe Iran Can’t Be Trusted

Obama WH Turned Down Offer to Build O-Care Website for Free – Blew a $1 Billion Instead

IBM offered

Grandma Obamacare - Hillary as the Matriarch of Disaster.

De Blasio’s welfare agenda

De Blasio ally: ‘Knockout game’ violence stems from ‘genuine concern’ about Jewish influence

US Healthcare, Now With Smaller Networks Than Ever

The ObamaCare PR Reset Won’t Work

Who Will Treat Those New Medicaid Patients From the Obamacare Exchanges?

At Last, Walmart Opens in Washington, D.C

Via Watts:

...it seems that the two iconic images that most “galvanized the global warming movement” have been shown to be outright frauds. One the stranded polar bear, and the other Mann’s hockey stick.

Image from How Much Trouble Are the Democrats In?

The Left Falls for a Revealing Poverty Hoax

Young Women Are Driving Record Firearm Sales

Obama: “We’re Not Going Back” …(To When 87% Were Happy With Their Health Care)

Arctic ice cap grows 29% in one year

I blame climate change

Nurse Practitioners Can Make Health Care Cheaper - And Doctors Want to Stop Them.

Doesn't matter: It's hospital costs that are the problem

Venezuela Goes Into the Car Business

Somali Muslim Who Raped Dead Swedish Woman Won’t Be Deported

Gotta give those Swedes credit for multicultural tolerance and sensitivity

Expert: Healthcare.gov Security Risks Even Worse After ‘Fix’

Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist musicians pay tribute to Bob Dylan in new
album “From Another World.”

How Western left-wing NGOs exacerbate the Israel-Palestine conflict